Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0026540, Sun, 18 Oct 2015 01:46:44 -0200

Subject
RES: [NABOKV-L] Botkin as prisoner of Zembla in Pale Fire
Date
Body
C. Kunin to A. Sklyarenko: [ ] Alexey Sklyarenko wrote: The god’s name means in Hebrew “Almighty” and brings to mind Shade…[ ] El (god) Shaddei (the destroyer) is sometimes translated as God Almighty - but that is a loose translation[ ] By the way, in the Heine poem the word Adonay (or Adonai) is the most usual word for God in Jewish religious use - it is a euphemism meaning "my lord." The orthodox go further and use the euphemism of the euphemism ha shem, meaning "the name."



Jansy Mello: A.S also wrote that “ Kinbote dubbed his black gardener “Balthasar, Prince of Loam” (note to Line 62). Balthasar was the name of one of the magi. The Gifts of the Magi (1905) is one of O. Henry’s most famous stories. Btw., the (different) magi are mentioned at the end of Heine’s poem Belsazar .” Magi, magicians, astrologers, diviners are often mentioned in the Old Testament. In Daniel 5 (NIV) we read about the “Writing on the Wall” during a banquet offered by the King of the Babylonians for a thousand nobles*. His name was Belshazzar (or, as in Heine’s poem, “Belsazar”). I don’t think that a reference to “magi” is enough to connect Balthasar and Belsazar.



……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

*5 Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. 6 His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his legs became weak and his knees were knocking. 7 The king summoned the enchanters, astrologers[ <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel%205> b] and diviners. Then he said to these wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing and tells me what it means will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around his neck,and he will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.”




Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en

Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L

Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L
Attachment